


Modern Times

by spacestationtrustfund



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1930s, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Identity, Jewish Bucky Barnes, New York City, Robots, Steve Rogers vs. the 21st Century, Steve/Sadness OTP, Trauma, industrialization metaphors for forced transhumanism, now that's more like it, this is pretty tame by my standards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:33:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23816965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund
Summary: In 2014, Steve and Natasha do lunch. In 1936, Steve and Bucky see a Charlie Chaplin film.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff
Comments: 22
Kudos: 207





	Modern Times

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alexicon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexicon/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Fourth Law of Robotics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829480) by [spacestationtrustfund](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund). 



> Title from the eponymous Chaplin production. It's great; go watch it.

“Okay, enough,” Natasha said.

She dropped her purse solidly on the kitchen table, atop the loose papers there. Steve glanced up, startled: he didn't usually hear her when she didn't want to be heard, but that didn't make it any easier to get used to, especially not when he had spent so long being attuned to the slightest noise that the average person wouldn't pick up on.

“Huh?”

Natasha set her hands on her hips. “We’re doing brunch,” she said.

“Isn’t it too early for that?” said Steve, trying to cover the papers as surreptitiously as possible. Natasha had previously introduced him to the concept by dragging him along to all of her favorite restaurants in the DC area. He’d thought that her determined quest to educate him on the traditional foods of every region she’d been to would have ended by now, after nearly three years of weekly excursions (and a two month break while Natasha had been undercover at an undisclosed location), but apparently she still had something up her sleeve.

“Unless you’d rather spend the day moping around in your apartment again—”

“Well,” Steve said.

“I could order DoorDash,” Natasha threatened, reaching ominously for her wallet.

Steve winced before he could stop himself, which was of course what Natasha had been hoping for. He said, chagrined, “Did Fury put you up to this?”

“Shockingly, Nick doesn’t actually force me to periodically check up on my friends,” said Natasha. “Anyway, you should probably bring a jacket; it’s supposed to be chilly.”

For her part, she was wearing a red leather jacket over her black turtleneck and jeans. Steve made a face at her. He would have much rather preferred to stay inside and focus on reading—he’d checked out four different Ian Kershaw books from the library the day before, and had only managed to get through the first hundred pages of one—but he could hardly begrudge Natasha’s desire to do something more interesting during her designated stint on Cap watch. No one had flat-out told him about the surveillance detail, but it was hardly unexpected; he was, after all, a national asset.

And besides, he’d overheard a few of the junior agents taking bets on how long it would be before Agent Romanoff went to Fury and begged to be reassigned due to sheer boredom. Steve had apparently garnered quite the reputation for being a milk run, and it was common knowledge that Agent Romanoff had grander ambitions.

“Where are we going this time?” Steve asked, stuffing the papers on the kitchen table back into their folder. Natasha might have been the one to get him the files on the 107th originally, but that didn’t mean he wanted her to know how often he read through them, even after three years.

Natasha hummed, non-committal and instantly suspicious. “Oh, just some local Polish place. Clint took me there a couple of weeks ago after he got back from Gdańsk. They serve some really excellent kapytki.”

Steve gathered up the files and went to put on his jacket, apprehensive.

His suspicions were validated when he followed Natasha out the door and her usual car wasn’t waiting. “Natasha,” he warned.

She dimpled at him. “Let’s go,” she said, linking their arms and tugging him along. She was shorter enough that he had to bend awkwardly to keep from pulling her arm out of its socket; the result was more of an inconvenient bow-legged waddle than a walk, but she didn’t slow down or release him. “We’ll miss the train if we don’t hurry.”

The train? “Natasha,” Steve repeated, although he didn’t pull his arm free. “Where are we going?”

“I told you, we’re doing brunch. I’m bored and it’s lunchtime and I want to introduce you to Eastern European cuisine,” she said, perfectly guileless. “Actually, you probably should have brought your book; the trip takes about three hours. We should get there around eleven.”

“I don’t appreciate being lied to,” Steve said.

“Zaichik, I haven’t lied,” said Natasha.

Steve frowned. “By omission.”

“You want to discuss semantics, we would be here all day,” she said. “Relax, I’ll pay for your ticket.”

That hadn’t been what Steve was worried about, but he gave in anyway. He’d learned relatively quickly that it was futile to argue with Natasha when she wanted something to happen.

The train ride to New York took, as Natasha had promised, about three hours. Steve didn’t mind people-watching, especially when nobody recognized him (the anonymity was, even after all this time, one of his favorite things about New York), and Natasha was good company. People-watching was, after all, part of her job. She was particularly good at coming up with elaborate backstories for the other people in the car. Bucky had always been terrible at it; he’d said everyone was a foreign spy or an evil bigwig, without exception. It had stopped being funny pretty quickly.

“It’s not a long walk,” Natasha said.

“What’s the place called?”

“Bułka z Masłem,” said Natasha, in an accent Steve had never heard before. “It’s on Eighth Avenue by the intersection with West 48th Street, you can even look it up if you really don’t believe it’s a real place. Although if there’s one thing I wouldn’t lie about, it’s good kapytki.”

They took the subway then and ended up on West 49th at the station. “Oh, there’s an Olive Garden only like two blocks away,” Natasha enthused, while they exited the station amidst the swarm of people hurrying to their destinations. She had her nose buried in her phone like everyone else, but Steve wasn’t fooled by the phony show of nonchalance.

“Tell me we’re not going to Radio City,” he said.

Natasha blinked at him. “What? No! I told you we were going to brunch, we’re going to brunch.”

“Forgive me if I find it a bit difficult to believe you,” Steve said.

“You could always ask someone where the Polish café is,” said Natasha. “I’m sure the locals would _love_ to help Captain America navigate their _fine_ city.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “If there’s one place where people don’t care that I’m Captain America, it’s New York,” he said.

He loved it. Even the sewage and urine stench of the subway was heart-wrenchingly familiar. It made his throat hurt from biting back the memories. They’d turned the High Line into a public park, taken down the trolleys long ago, and changed the topography of the city itself, but for better or worse, it still smelled the same. It was sort of stupid, to be getting choked up about the way New York stank, but he couldn’t help it. There had, of course, been a reason he’d stayed away for so long, after all.

They passed the M&Ms World store, and Steve thought about the first time he’d tried M&Ms. The only good shit to come outta New Jersey, Bucky had called them. _And me_ , Steve had protested, and Bucky had laughed and tried to put the tiny candy shells down his shirt, never mind that everyone’s chocolate rations were more precious than gold. Bucky, like everyone else, couldn’t stand the K rations, and had been pleased as punch when the Army switched over to M&Ms and Hershey.

“Hmm,” Natasha said. She hugged close to his side as they walked. “But you’re not living here anymore.”

“If you dragged me into the city to psychoanalyze me, you’re shit outta luck,” Steve said dryly. “I got enough of that from the mandatory yearly psych eval with Dr. Hallemeier, thanks.” He shrugged. “Besides, I guess people think it’s patriotic, Captain America living in DC, something like that.”

“Oh yeah, America first, I’m sure that was exactly your intention,” said Natasha. “Maybe they just thought you’d— Steve?”

They had met the intersection with Broadway, and Steve had stopped dead in his tracks without warning. That uneasy feeling in his stomach whenever he saw something that didn’t look right was back. “Didn’t there used to be a theatre there?” he asked, halfway dreading the answer.

“You could look it up on your cell phone,” Natasha suggested.

“I didn't bring my cell phone,” Steve said.

Natasha smiled at him. She fished her phone out from her purse and handed it over.

Steve took it. “Thank you,” he said, after a moment.

“Come on,” Natasha said. She slipped her arm into his, and led him across the intersection and back on West 49th. “Buck up, it’s just a few more blocks, don’t wear yourself out before we get there, old man.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, distracted. Buck up, never say die, had that been it?

The Rivoli Theatre had been demolished in 1987, according to Wikipedia, which was definitely one of Steve’s favorite websites on the Internet. The black glass skyscraper that had replaced it looked like something from another dimension, tall and glittering and impenetrable.

Bucky would have loved it, Steve thought, and felt like the irony was eating him alive.

 _We’ll get along_ , that’s what it had been. _Buck up—never say die. We’ll get along!_

“Steve,” Natasha was saying. She tapped his cheek with one finger, hard. “Steve. Steve. You awake?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah,” Steve said, fumbling with her phone when he tried to give it back. Natasha had a rubber phone case that was shaped like a pink unicorn, but that didn’t mean it was impervious to damage.

_You awake?_

“No,” Steve says, muffled by the pillow. He’s lying face down on the mattress, still in his work clothes, trying to muster up the energy to get up and boil the last of the potatoes and beans for dinner. It’s too hot to wear his jacket, but the thought of having to take it off is making him feel yet more exhausted. And turning on the little Primus stove would only make the entire room steam up even worse…

Bucky snorts. A newspaper lands on the back of Steve’s head, and he smacks vaguely at it. The pages crinkle when he moves.

“G’way,” says Steve, but it’s half-hearted.

“Can I come in?”

“’S a free country, last I checked.”

Bucky huffs a laugh at that. He scoops up the newspaper and straightens the crumpled paper, closing the door to the hall behind him when he steps inside. Steve can hear the floorboards creak under Bucky’s old dress shoes as he moves closer. “Hey, you hear about the new Chaplin film at the Rivoli?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. A flyer had been hung up outside the WPA offices; he’d been envious of how expensive and professional it'd looked.

“Well, get dressed, we’re going.”

Steve sits up, too alarmed to worry about the tightness in his chest. “Buck, it’s _Wednesday_. You have to work tomorrow morning.”

“So? I said we’re going, we’re going.”

“I can’t,” Steve protests.

“Why not? ’S it cause you’re worried about paying the hospital bills for your Ma? Don’t worry, I’ll pay for your ticket. Loge seats are only a buck apiece.”

Steve frowns. “I ain’t got two dollars. You got two dollars?”

“I _said_ I’d pay for your ticket, how’m I supposed to do that if I ain’t got the money? Aw, c’mon, I know you wanna go, I know you love Chaplin, and it’s opening night—you can tell your Ma all about it tomorrow morning when you go to bring her the paper, how bout that?”

“I can pay for my own ticket,” Steve says, grabbing for his gabardine jacket that he’d thrown haphazardly across the back of the narrow chair. He fumbles in the pockets, looking for his wallet. If he has to shove the money in Bucky’s big mouth to get him to stop acting like Steve can’t strike out on his own, he’ll do it.

Bucky holds out his hands in supplication. “Steve—”

“I don’t want charity,” Steve says, stubborn.

Bucky drags his hands through his hair, frustrated, leaving it all stuck up everywhere. He’s not wearing his hat; the heat has wilted his curls. Steve would normally laugh, but right now he’s too irritated to find it funny. “Can’t a decent fella spend some time with his best friend without being accused of _charity_ , Steve, hell.”

“You see any decent fellas around here?”

“All right, wise guy,” Bucky says, and grabs Steve’s collar, tugging him into a headlock, even when Steve splutters, dropping his jacket, and tries to smack his hands away. Bucky shakes him a little, rough but not mean, and says, “Look, it was like pulling teeth to get you to let me stand in the bread lines over in Greenwich so you wouldn’t drop dead—like pulling teeth to get you to agree to taking the food in the first place, since you didn’t want _handouts_ —”

There had been other reasons Steve hadn’t wanted Bucky to wander around Greenwich talking a big game about knowing Steve Rogers, but Steve doesn’t exactly want to bring any of that up right now. Bucky’s had enough on his mind anyway, what with the auto plant strikes and the fact that there’s barely any work to be found. He doesn’t know if Bucky knows about where he goes in Greenwich—Steve’s heart threatens to jump right out his chest every time Bucky casually mentions something that _could_ be a clue or could just be a coincidence.

“What’s your point,” Steve snaps, spooked and fed up.

“My point is,” Bucky says loudly, “it ain’t a bad thing to need a little help, and it ain’t a bad thing to let people give you a leg up. I got a little extra working last weekend at Gruenwald’s, it’ll be my treat.”

Steve chews on his lip, pensive. “Now listen, you coulda got four yards of fabric for two dollars down at Woolworth’s, I know Rebecca needs a new dress for Esther’s bat m—”

“Yeah, and maybe _I_ don’t hafta buy her one, huh?”

“Well, then you coulda spent it on those new shoes I know you need—”

Bucky throws up his hands in exasperation, releasing Steve in the process, and exclaims, “Well would you look at that, there’s a discount for seniors. Think you’d qualify?”

Steve blinked. Natasha was looking up at him, an amused smile on her face.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was just... lost in thought.”

He held the door for her, and she said, “You know, some women would be offended by that sort of thing.”

“I’d do it for anyone,” Steve said. Natasha studied him curiously.

“You really would, wouldn’t you,” she said. It didn’t sound like a question, and he had no idea what to say in response anyway. She patted his elbow, looking almost sympathetic, then moved towards the counter to look at the menu.

A new dress for Rebecca to wear to Bucky’s cousin Esther’s bat mitzvah. Two dollars would have bought four yards of fabric. That’s what he had forgotten. Had Bucky ever got the new shoes he needed? The forgetting was worse than the remembering.

Natasha ordered barszcz z uszka, and Steve flubbed his way through asking for something called kiszka ziemniaczana. “The first time I came here, I didn’t ask for the uszka, and they served me paszteciki szczecińskie,” she said, like it was something Steve was supposed to understand. “Borscht i vushka! If I wanted yizha, I would have gone to the Ukrainian place instead.”

“Right,” said Steve.

She smiled at him, not unkindly. “I remember that it was a real treat, if we got pampushki with the borscht for dinner. We used to fight over the last rolls from the baskets, only we would get in trouble if anyone caught us, so we had to fight under the table. I remember Marusya had a piece of sharp glass she found outside, from a broken window, and she had it in her hand. I probably would still have the scars on my legs from where she cut me with it.”

“That’s—horrible,” Steve said, at a loss for words.

He’d only heard a few of Natasha’s infamous Red Room stories over the years, but one of the agents assigned to his strike team—Rollins—had taken him aside to explain a little more than what was in the Black Widow’s official SHIELD file. Natasha liked to shock people, and she liked to tell stories. Nobody knew for certain how much was fabricated, and nobody wanted to be the first to ask so bluntly.

Natasha tore off some of the bread and dunked it in her soup. “Of course, I don’t still have the scars,” she said. “Just like you don’t have scars anymore, don’t you?”

“I don’t,” Steve said. He’d seen the pictures of what he’d looked like when they’d dragged him out of the ice, so battered and mutilated that it had been a miracle there was any skin left to heal. But of course he had healed eventually. There had been no physical record left of what had happened to him.

“I bet you miss it, sometimes,” said Natasha.

Steve gave her a warning look. “Natasha—”

That earned him another bright smile. “I don’t! I don’t miss it. Saves me a fortune on concealer,” she said breezily, tearing off another scrap of the bread roll with precise fingers. “And imagine if I had to go under the knife for scar revision after each and every fun excursion, right?”

“‘Fun excursion.’ Yeah, sure,” Steve says.

“Yeah, that’s right, it’ll be a fun excursion,” Bucky wheedles. “Aw hey, c’mon, you were planning to get me something for my birthday anyway, right?”

Steve flushes. “Yeah,” he says slowly. His plans currently amount to little more than throwing together a sketch of Bucky and possibly Rebecca in what little free time he has, and he’s not even allowed to use the good pencils for things other than work.

“All right, well, for my birthday I want you to go to the Rivoli and see Chaplin’s latest masterpiece,” Bucky says, looking far too smug. “And whatta coincidence, tonight’s the night I’m going to see it too.”

“Buck...”

“Steve,” Bucky mimics, maddeningly calm. “Look, if you really don’t wanna go, I’ll have to ask Edith Cunningham, cause I already told Harry down at the theatre I was gonna buy the tickets so save two of ’em for me, and if I’m not gonna go with a friend then I’ll have to find a date, and you know Edith doesn’t have a real artistic bone in her body, so there.”

Steve gapes at him. “You—you don’t gotta ask _Edith Cunningham_ , Buck, jeez. I’ll go.”

Bucky’s face lights up, and he yanks Steve over to ruffle up his hair, even when Steve hollers and socks him in the ribs.

“Cut it out, you lunk!”

“Aw, I’m just glad I was able to convince you,” Bucky says cheerfully. “It’ll take your mind off things, that’s for sure.”

It’s a little insulting that Bucky thinks Steve needs to have someone take his mind off things, but he doesn’t really have the energy to argue the point. He’ll be 18 in a few months, and Bucky will be turning 20 next month. Steve’s lucky that the WPA has been so accommodating; it’s not a lot of money, but it’s more or less something steady, which is more than what Bucky can say, anyway. Bucky has been maddeningly close-lipped about where he gets his funds, but Steve knows he’s been laid off from not only the auto plant when it shut down but also the convenience store where he’d worked as a floorwalker for almost a year. Steve had always loved visiting him at work, even though Bucky said he shouldn’t; Bucky had looked so nice and trim in his suit, like a real dish. Of course, if Steve could have visited him at the auto plant, he’d have done it, too; forget Bucky looking nice when he was all dolled up, he’d been something else in his undershirt and pants with dark oil stains on his face where he’d wiped off the sweat.

The Barnes family normally has enough money that they can afford a little something extra on birthdays or holidays, but even the normally comfortable households are still struggling to get back on their feet.

Bucky is still working odd jobs in every bit of available time he has, and sometimes some he doesn’t really have, just to scrape together enough to buy food each week. The economic downturn had claimed first his Pa’s job at the mechanic’s, then his Pa, and for all Bucky’s hard work, not to mention Mrs. Barnes’s, the Barnes family hasn’t quite regained their balance yet. Steve, for his part, had managed to find a relatively steady income through the WPA.

The newspaper he works for usually pays him about $0.30 per commission, which isn’t bad at all as long as he whacks out a dozen or so a week, but just because it’s something steady doesn’t mean it’s enough to splurge on opening night box seats on Broadway.

It already costs more than he’s got to stay in the little rear tenement, and besides, whether he wants to admit it or not, his Ma is hardly getting any better, and medicine isn’t exactly a dime a dozen.

The heat isn’t doing anything to help, either. Steve’s been trying to keep it from her when he visits, but there’s only so long he can smother his coughing in his handkerchief before she notices.

And so two dollar movie tickets are hardly within the usual budget.

Steve thinks about how much extra work that would mean—seven commissions at the usual pay, assuming he didn’t need to buy food or anything else—and has to bite down on his tongue so he won’t start arguing again. Bucky doesn’t need to hear his whining. It’s Bucky’s money.

The fact of the matter is that it would be easier to do something like this than have to worry about finding something else to do for Bucky’s birthday. And besides, it isn’t like Steve won’t enjoy the film.

Bucky had always gone for the real horror fantasy stuff, Bela Lugosi in _Dracula_ and _White Zombie_ or Boris Karloff in _Frankenstein_ and _The Mummy_ , or Fredric March in _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. But they both liked Chaplin fine, even if Steve had been the one to drag Bucky along to see _The Circus_ when he was nine and Bucky was eleven, and then _City Lights_ when he was twelve and Bucky was fourteen. Bucky had dragged him along to _King Kong_ and _The Invisible Man_ in 1933 despite the fact that Steve had been so sick for most of 1933 that Father Callaghan had visited twice, scaring Bucky half out of his wits when he’d learned why. That hadn’t stopped Bucky from dragging Steve along to go see _Werewolf of London_ two years later though, claiming that Henry Hull was a dead ringer for Steve.

It was impossible to get anything done if Bucky had some story he wanted to share, even his _Weird Tales_ magazines that he would read aloud to Steve while Steve was working on commissions, or trying to total up the week’s grocery budget, or listening to the radio. Bucky had always liked to talk a big game about how Steve listened religiously to the radio soaps or Rudy Vallée, but Steve still remembers how Bucky had cried listening to Painted Dreams, so he’s got dirt of his own.

“Okay,” Steve relents, finally. Bucky whoops and punches the air, and Steve swats at him. “Cool it, you’ll have half the neighborhood wonderin’ which girl you proposed to this time!”

“Is that it? I gotta get down on one knee?” Bucky makes like he’s going to, and Steve grabs his collar, alarmed. “Aw, c’mon, I’m just kidding. It’ll be good for you to get out and have some fun, instead of being stuck cooped up in here all week.”

Steve crosses his arms. “ _Good_ for me?”

“Speaking of doing things that would be good for you,” Natasha said. “Are you ever gonna ask out that cute ex-AFSOC guy who you see all the time on your morning jogging route?”

Steve set his fork down pointedly. “Natasha.”

“What? I’m just asking.”

“You know, it’s generally considered rude to pry into people’s personal business like that,” Steve said. Natasha didn’t even seem bothered by the insinuation.

“I’m Russian,” she said. “And I’m curious.”

“You don’t even know if I’m—” Steve lowered his voice, more habit than anything else. “You know what I mean.”

Natasha tossed her hair back off her shoulders casually. “No, but your reaction wasn’t exactly opaque. I know you and Director Carter were _going steady_ back in the forties, but what about you and—”

“I’m not having this conversation,” Steve said. He grabbed his jacket and stood up, pulling out his wallet and slapping the black SHIELD card down on the table. “Here. I’ll pay if you want, but I’m not having this conversation.”

He knew the other people in the room were probably staring at him as he left, but he didn’t care. If they recognized him, he’d just run, Steve thought. He could feel his hands shaking. He could run fast enough to evade anyone who wanted to chase after him, he thought. It wouldn’t be polite, and it would certainly only result in more questions, but he could do it if he had to.

His hands were shaking. It was just so stupid, but his hands were shaking.

Natasha caught up with him outside a few minutes later, carrying the rest of their food in a little paper bag. “I got some more uszka for the train back to DC,” she said, holding out the paper bag like an apology.

Steve didn’t take it. He was leaning against the wall wishing he had a smoke, or that he could go into one of the bodegas and buy a pack without it ending up all over the news—CAPTAIN AMERICA SUPPORTS CHILDHOOD LUNG CANCER, or HERE’S WHICH SMOKES TO BUY IF YOU WANT TO GET ON CAP’S DICK, something like that. He was sick of being Captain America. It wasn’t something he could turn off, the way most of the SHIELD agents could. Even Natasha could go undercover as easy as breathing. And cigarettes didn’t even do anything for him, much like alcohol or caffeine. He just missed the taste and the memories of sitting on the rusting fire escape and smoking while the sun was hung low over the Brooklyn skyline. It had been hot enough that summer that he and Bucky had spent most of their evenings outside, slowly melting. Bucky had sprawled on the fire escape, legs stuck out down the ladder, and said: _I’m gonna drip down to the street and land on some poor schmuck’s hat if it gets one damn degree hotter_.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Natasha said, after a moment. “I should have known it would be a sore subject.”

Steve laughed, too loud. The sound made him wince. “Don’t treat me like I’m a fucking idiot.”

Natasha sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “How about this: I shouldn’t have needled you, especially about something I knew was a sore subject?”

“Yeah, your sincerity is real fuckin’ believable,” Steve said. He was thinking about the swarms of movie-goers gathering up around the doors to the Rivoli, pressing closer, the crowd thick and excited. He felt like his skin was made of glass, like if someone touched him he would shatter into a million sharp pieces. _Buck up_ , the title card in his head announced, cheerful and uncaring. _Never say die. We’ll get along!_

 _Keeping a stiff upper lip_ , Peggy had called it. Chin up and keep calm.

“We’d gone to the theatre,” he said. “Before.”

“When I asked you about—”

“Yeah,” Steve says. Bucky beams at him.

“Told you! Didn’t I? I told you, you’d love it,” he says, pumping his fist like he’s in the stands of a home game. The motion shakes Steve’s entire body; he slips out from Bucky’s grasp so he doesn’t topple over.

Bucky had bought sodas and Reese’s and enough popcorn to feed a small army, despite Steve’s embarrassed protests that he couldn’t afford it. _I’ll eat it all anyway if you don’t_ , Bucky said. He’d bumped his knee against Steve’s companionably, and Steve had tried not to shiver. Bucky had draped his jacket over him anyway, and now Steve has two jackets and Bucky is in his shirt-sleeves.

“You gonna be all right to walk back?” Bucky asks.

Steve nods. His chest feels tight, but that’s normal enough. “I’m all right,” he says. He’d spent the last of his wages on paying for the movie ticket, despite Bucky’s arguing, but now he can’t pay for the trolley.

He’d feel bad about making Bucky walk back, anyway.

“I thought the scene in the café was a real side-splitter,” Bucky says, as they walk. “When he’s forgetting his lines cause he lost his cuffs? Boy, that’d be a nightmare, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah,” Steve says.

“I’d rather put on that skirt and dance to the music,” says Bucky.

Steve can feel his heart trying to crawl up into his throat. “In front of all those men?” he manages.

Bucky shrugs. “Sure, why not,” he says. “It’d be fun, like when you dressed up as one of those ladies in the goyische Nativity play when you were a kid.”

“One of those— Bucky, that was 10 years ago,” Steve protests. Bucky had hated the production; he’d only been allowed to go because he and Steve had lied to Mrs. Barnes about the denomination, and he’d spent the rest of the afternoon complaining to Steve how stupid the whole show had been. Steve had been Mary, since he’d been the only boy small and skinny enough to pass as a girl.

“Well, I’m just saying,” says Bucky. “I’d rather go out in that outfit than forget my lines and have to make something up on the spot, that’s all.”

Steve worries his lower lip with his teeth. “I thought it was real smart, that scene in the beginning, where he was tryna go back to jail just so’s to have a roof over his head and a hot meal,” he says. “And when he ended up in that demonstration with the Communist workers—”

“Course you do,” Bucky says.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“It means what I said,” says Bucky. “Don’t snap your cap at me. Besides, he went and released those police-men, didn’t he?”

Steve glowers. But before he can get fired up enough to snap off at Bucky about how awful the police-men had been, Bucky says, “I guess it was pretty funny when they got all knocked out in the wagon.”

“I thought it was pretty funny when those crooks had him all drunk when he was a floorwalker,” Steve says, mollified.

They list their favorite scenes back and forth for a while as they walk. Bucky likes the scene where the Little Tramp tries to high dive into half a foot of water; Steve likes the scene where the Gamine steals bananas from the incoming sailors. Bucky likes the roller-skates; Steve likes the way the workers are shown to be angry. “It makes sense,” he points out, while Bucky rolls his eyes. “They’ve got a reason to be angry! Everyone’s angry, because there’s no work!”

“Well, I hope things take a turn for the better,” Bucky says. “What with the Second New Deal, and the Social Security business, and all that shtick. So we don’t hafta end up stuck in a machine like in the film.”

“During lunch break,” Steve says, grinning. He’s been grateful for the WPA, of course, since he wouldn’t have any income otherwise.

“Boy, I’d love to do that sort of thing to _my_ boss when he’s being awful,” Bucky agrees. He grimaces. “I’d love to work in a factory like that though. All that machinery looked like a real jive, I’ll tell you that.” He glances over at Steve, still draped in their jackets. “You thought it was swell, right?”

Despite everything, Steve feels abruptly fond. “Sure I did, you twit,” he says. “But you know it’s a real problem, all that industrialization, and the big machines—when technology’s booting out the workers from the factories, that’s how we ended up like this, with no jobs—”

“I think it’d be killer if they could switch out all the fellas with ro-bots,” says Bucky.

Steve groans. Bucky’s been obsessed with the idea of robotics ever since he dragged Steve along to the Garrick Theatre on Broadway to see a performance of a play by some foreign guy, over 10 years ago. _Any of us could be robots_ , he’d say, elbowing Steve while Steve is trying to hold still on the subway, _lookit that schlemiel over there, he’s probably a robot in a disguise, don’tcha think?_

“That wouldn’t be much of a story,” Steve says, doubtful.

“It’d be great,” Bucky says. “Maybe the problem’s just some faulty wiring, that’s why the Little Tramp can’t catch a break. He an’ Ellen run off to a mechanic’s, and get themselves fixed up, and then he doesn’t have a problem. Hey, you saw the part where he’s out in the street lookin’ like he’s jitterbugging around cause he can’t stop moving—”

“I don’t think Chaplin does robots,” Steve says.

“Well, he should.”

“Well, he doesn’t!”

Bucky rolls his eyes. He veers off their path to wave to Mr. Ettinghausen at the butcher shop, who waves back with the hand not holding a meat cleaver. When Bucky returns, he slings an arm across Steve’s shoulders again. “I thought it was great when the Little Tramp got the big cheese stuck in the machines,” he says. “It served ’im right.”

“He was all screwed up,” Steve says. “They didn’t pay him enough.”

“I’d do that job,” Bucky says.

“You’d do _any_ job!”

“That’s on account of there’s no work,” says Bucky. “But I wouldn’t mind it anyhow. It’s a pattern, once you get into the rhythm—”

“Sure, long as you don’t end up twisting off some lady’s—equipment,” Steve says, blushing furiously.

Bucky leers. “That gal had the cat _and_ kittens,” he says admiringly. “Ellen too.”

“Oh, lay off, you creep,” Steve says, shoving him away.

He walks determinedly away from Bucky, while Bucky follows him doggedly and loudly whistles despite Steve ignoring him. Steve stops to greet Mrs. Tzarfati in the downstairs tenement room, and Bucky drapes himself over Steve’s back, messing up Steve’s hair when Steve tries to elbow him in the stomach.

“Shove off,” Steve says.

Bucky keeps standing there in the doorway while Steve gets out the key to the rooms he shares with his Ma. “You’re gonna come to Esther’s bat mitzvah, right,” he says. “Next week.”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Good, cause if I have to endure zeideh Shlomo knocking my tshaynik about stepping off the plank with _a nice Orthodox girl_ for shidduch one more time,” Bucky says. He shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Don’t tell him you don’t go to shul this time then,” Steve says.

He gets the door unlocked and steps inside, but Bucky follows him. “What’d you think of the ending?” he asks, looking anywhere but Steve.

“Not much of an ending,” Steve says.

“That’s the point, right?”

“I guess,” says Steve. “It’d be nice to know what happened to ’em, maybe.”

He goes and sits on the bed to take off his shoes. Bucky comes over and turns on the lamp, then sits on the other end of the bed.

“I like to think they joined the circus,” Bucky says.

“The circus!”

“Sure,” Bucky says, warming up to the idea. “So they join the circus, and then they go back and fetch her little sisters, and all of them run away together and start a family.”

Steve flops back onto the bed, then rolls his head to the side so he can look at Bucky. “Do they stay in the circus after that, then?”

“Well, I guess so,” says Bucky. “It’d be fun I reckon, getting to work with all those lions and tigers and elephants.”

“Oh, my,” Steve says, on cue.

Bucky grins at him. “So he says to her, ‘It’s kind of an unconventional house, isn’t it,’ and she says, ‘Well it’s not a house at all—it’s a tent!’ But of course the two little girls love it, and the circus would be a great place for them, don’t you think? Nobody would judge ’em for messing something up, that’s what the people come for anyhow. Just like working as a singing dancing waiter, except that’s what the audience is expecting, you know. That’s what I think happens to ’em, after.”

Steve nods, thinking about it. Now that Bucky says it, he can definitely see the Tramp and the Gamine in the circus. “What about Big Bill?” he demands, anyway.

“He can come visit ’em,” Bucky says through a yawn. The low lamplight throws his jaw into sharp relief. “Maybe the circus’ll hire him as a strongman, how’s that?”

The image of Big Bill standing in the ring, lifting one of the Gamine’s two little sisters with each hand, is a satisfying one, Steve has to admit. “It’s a real nice ending, Buck,” he decides.

“Hell,” Bucky says. “The Little Tramp in the circus? I’d give an arm an’ a leg to see that.”

“You couldn’t work if you only had one arm and one leg,” Steve points out.

Bucky guffaws. “You give a leg, then. I can make do with only one arm, I’ll be like old Danny down at the docks.” Danny works in the shipyards hauling crates, and lost his left arm when he was shot in the shoulder during the war, and the gangrene set in before he could tie it up with a tourniquet.

“Well, then I wouldn’t be able to walk,” Steve says.

“I’ll carry you,” Bucky says promptly. “Wherever you need to go. Or I’d bring you everything, so you can just sit in bed and draw, and I’ll fetch your meals and that sort of stuff.”

“Well, I don’t _want_ you to do that,” says Steve.

“Geez, Steve,” Bucky says. “I want to take care of you, you don’t have to be so cut up about it.”

“And I don’t want you to have to look after me! I don’t want to be stuck in bed all day with one leg, I want to be able to walk around,” Steve says, defensive. He sits up, folding his arms, so he can scowl at Bucky. He hates when he can’t repay Bucky for all of Bucky’s endless favors and gifts and spontaneous surprises.

Bucky looks uncomfortable. He squirms a little when Steve glares at him. “I’ll give up a leg then,” he acquiesces. “And then _you’ll_ have to bring me things, so there.”

“I’ll make you one of those feeding machines,” Steve says.

“S’long as you don’t shove cake in my face,” says Bucky. “Or pour soup down my front.”

“You’d deserve it,” Steve mutters.

He expects Bucky to argue, but Bucky falls silent for a moment. “Probably,” he agrees, a minute later. “Just don’t make it too hot, Steve, all right? I don’t want to get burned too bad.”

“You’re probably a robot anyway,” Steve says, ruthless.

But Bucky doesn’t take the bait. “Sure I am,” he says, “but it’s like how you shouldn’t dunk the radio in the bathwater. It’ll keep tellin’ you stories, and baseball stats, but you gotta take care of things, get the dust off, make sure the dials are set right—”

Steve isn’t sure whether they’re talking about Bucky or the radio. It doesn’t really matter. “All right,” he relents. “I won’t pour soup on you.”

“Gee, thanks,” says Bucky.

But he doesn’t really look upset.

“It wouldn’t kill you to hafta hold still for once,” Steve decides, nodding.

“Aw, I can hold still,” Bucky says. “I’m holding still right now, see? Look!”

“I’m lookin’!”

Bucky inhales a big gulp and puffs his cheeks out comically. He stays still though, even when Steve blows on his ear and pokes him in the ribs, which usually makes Bucky shout and try to kick him.

It’s impressive, Steve has to admit. “Never say die,” he says.

“What?” said Natasha.

Steve blinked. It took him a moment to come back to himself.

Natasha was looking up at him, brow furrowed. She looked concerned; Steve hastened to say something before she decided he was fit for the loony bin.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just—the theatre, that used to be there. Saw a lot of pictures there, when I was a kid.”

“Oh, _talkies_ ,” Natasha said, grinning. “Well, we’ve got plenty of time before I have to back, I could pull up Fandango to see what it has on its roster for today, how does that sound?”

Steve didn’t really want to go see a movie. He wanted to go back to the apartment and finish the book he’d started on, but it would be rude to say that.

“However you think of it,” Bucky had decided, “it was a real treat, and I’ll be real excited to see the next time Chaplin’s the Little Tramp.”

Chaplin hadn’t portrayed the Little Tramp again on the silver screen, though. Steve had looked it up.

It hadn’t really been that important, he'd tried to convince himself. After all, there were plenty of other movies. There were even plenty of other Chaplin productions. But Steve had still thought, _Bucky would have been devastated_ , and then he’d had to remind himself that it didn’t matter anyway. Because Bucky was dead, so it didn’t matter what movies did or didn’t exist.

“Sure thing,” Steve heard himself say. “Let’s go catch a movie.”

**Author's Note:**

> [The Rivoli](http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/555), [Rudy Vallée](http://rudyvallee.com/) (you might recognize the lyrics to [one of his songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzVcFM_5kQc)), [1930s candy](https://www.bonappetit.com/trends/article/a-history-of-movie-theater-snacks-in-america), "[a play by some foreign guy](http://preprints.readingroo.ms/RUR/rur.pdf)," [robots](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/10/30/1710902/-You-Are-Pronouncing-the-Word-Robot-Wrong). "Lions and tigers and elephants": _The Wizard of Oz_ wasn't adapted into a movie until 1939, but the books were still popular.


End file.
